Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 8-29-17

Sports
Mayweather, A Defensive Mastermind, Beats McGregor With His Fists, Ends His Career 50-0
By the look of things, retire- ment was treating Floyd May- weather, Jr. well.
He had a stable of boxers to promote, businesses, including a new strip club, to run, and a vast collection of luxury cars to enjoy. But there is a reason he em- braces the nickname Money: His brand was built as much on personality and spectacle as on skills in the boxing ring.
So when a rivalry with the mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor was manufactured on social media, Mayweather, 40, was more than happy to end his two-year retirement and to collect one final, potentially record-breaking paycheck. And he did it in the style that virtually everyone expected.
After allowing McGregor — 29 and boxing professionally for the first time — to come at him early in the fight with awkward punches that were by turns slap- ping and sharp, Mayweather took control in the middle rounds. He never looked back. He reddened McGregor’s face with a barrage of right-handed bombs, leading the referee to stop the fight a little more than a minute into the 10th round on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena. The victory left May- weather with a 50-0 record as a boxer, and dropped McGre- gor’s mark to 0-1.
Not only did Mayweather set himself up for a handsome
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. was pummeling Conor McGregor in the 10th round until the referee stopped their fight. It was the first pro- fessional boxing match for McGregor, a champion in mixed martial arts.
considered somewhat surpris- ing, and McGregor, a native of Dublin, can claim a moral vic- tory. He won the first round on all three judges’ scorecards, and the second and third rounds on one card. Still, McGregor’s early success may have been nothing more than May- weather’s baiting him into a trap — a rope-a-dope of sorts, as made famous by Muhammad Ali.
“Our game plan was to take our time, go to him, let him shoot his shots early and then take him out down the stretch,” Mayweather said.
In the U.F.C., the longest fights are 25 minutes, five rounds of five minutes. This bout had a maximum length of 36 minutes — 12 three-minute rounds — and McGregor had been fighting for a little more than 28 minutes by the time the referee called a halt. McGregor admitted afterward that he was fatigued, but he said he thought that the referee, Robert Byrd, had stopped the fight too soon.
“Let the man put me down,” McGregor said. “That’s fatigue, that’s not damage. Where was the final two rounds? Let me walk back to my corner and
compose myself.”
Despite McGregor’s claims
that he wanted to continue, Byrd appeared to step in just in the nick of time.
Shortly before that, May- weather, standing tall, thrust his fist squarely into McGre- gor’s chin, and he stumbled backward. Mayweather con- tinued to move forward, firing off peppery left-right combina- tions that left McGregor swollen in the face. He staggered into the ropes, and Byrd called an end to the fight.
“He’s composed,” McGre- gor said of Mayweather, whom McGregor had prom- ised to knock out within four rounds. “He’s not that fast, he’s not that powerful, but boy, is he composed in there.”
At moments, Mayweather did not look quite as sharp as usual, absorbing shots as he drew close to McGregor. But Mayweather did not seem at all bothered by McGregor’s punches, though he did occa- sionally appear to be frustrated when the two grappled and Mc- Gregor hammer-fisted him on the top and back of his head — violations that Byrd could have policed more vigilantly.
paycheck expected to exceed $200 million, but he also ended a career as a defensive master with a performance that was de- cidedly offensive. This was May- weather exorcising the demons of his previous megafight, against Manny Pacquiao two years ago, which proved to be dull to its broad, mainstream au- dience.
“I think we gave the fans what they wanted to see,” he said in the ring after beating McGre- gor. “I owed them for the Pac- quiao fight. I had to come straight ahead and give the fans a show. That’s what I gave them.”
No levelheaded analyst
thought that McGregor — a champion in the Ultimate Fight- ing Championship with a 21-3 record in mixed martial arts — stood a chance against May- weather, the greatest boxer of his generation.
Many purists saw the contest as a farce, nothing more than an exhibition. While Mayweather did all he could to hype up Mc- Gregor as a legitimate oppo- nent, he also said that he had taken the fight for the money.
And many experts offered dire predictions — that McGre- gor would not land a punch, that he would be knocked out within a few rounds.
In that light, the fight can be
Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor Laughing All The Way To The Bank
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Conor McGregor went from ring rivals to friendly foes after their super welterweight bout on Sat- urday night. Mayweather won when the fight was stopped in the 10th round.
Celebrities Compete For The Best Seats At The Floyd Mayweather Fight Against Conor McGregor
IT was Street Fighter personified; the best boxer on the planet against the most marketable mixed martial artist in a $700 million event that drew the eyes of the world.
Celebrities competed for the best seats — comedian Steve Harvey somehow beat basketball icon Le- bron James and Sean “Diddy” Combs in the ‘closest to the ring stakes’ — while actors Charlize Theron and Bruce Willis watched intently as Floyd Mayweather took apart UFC trash-talker Conor McGregor in 10 rounds. The ringside seats went for $10,000.
When all the pay-per- view numbers are tallied up, Mayweather expects to see $300 million in his bank account.
And for taking a solid beating as most had ex- pected, McGregor can lick his wounds with nearly $100 million, 20 times more than he has ever made in any UFC bout.
SAVANNAH AND LEBRON JAMES
ISAIAH THOMAS
CARDI B
JAMIE FOXX AND OLIVIA MUNN
JENNIFER LOPEZ AND ALEX RODRIGUEZ
Conor McGregor was drinking Irish whiskey and act- ing like he had won. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. was remi- niscing about his early days as a fighter and looking forward to a different kind of business at his strip club.
There were smiles all around and with good reason. They pulled off an audacious gamble Saturday night, and all that was left to do was to count the money rolling in.
Mayweather estimated his take at between $300 million
and $350 million. McGregor said he likely would clear $100 million and said he had his ac- countants on speed dial to make sure it was all collected.
Fans of both boxing and mixed martial arts had to be happy, too. They got a reason- ably entertaining fight that set- tled nothing about the two sports but embarrassed neither fighter.
"I enjoyed it very, very much," McGregor said. "It was an honor for me to show- case my skills."
PAGE 14 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2017